By Willoe Phillips
Five teachers received grants from the Abilene Education Foundation on Tuesday, September 26 to further expand their classroom materials.
“With the inflatable paint booth, we’ll be able to paint our projects and they’ll have a really nice professional looking finish,” agriculture teacher and FFA advisor Cindy Easley said.
Future Farmers of America paints and builds many different projects that are featured in the farm. Some of these projects go to competitions and win different prizes.
“We built a gate for the farm last year and we painted that,” Easley said. “Smoker, stands and all kinds of things we build in our shop.”
The grants are delivered to the teachers by prize patrol, which is made up of Abilene Education Foundation members.
“I love it when that happens,” Easley said. “Everybody gets so excited. The kids are excited and they probably don’t even know you applied for a grant.”
The application process is all online, and it requires an explanation how the grant will help their classroom, each teacher has a budget of $1,500 per grant.
“It was very exciting, I was teaching my AP Bio class and those kids know me very well,” biology teacher Megan Butler said. “They were very engaged in the process and excited.”
Teachers who received the grants are grateful, and will be able to expand their classroom materials, with the money they were awarded.
“Anytime I can get my kids hands on materials it benefits them in big ways,” Butler said. “With one of them we are going to grow closed ecosystems with algae and brine shrimp.”
